Breathing
Breathing is the primary means by which oxygen is delivered to the body’s cells and carbon dioxide is expelled. Oxygen is crucial for cells to produce the energy needed for all bodily functions.
Vital Process: Without proper breathing, cells cannot function optimally, leading to potential systemic failures.
Breathing helps with waste Removal: Breathing helps in the expulsion of carbon dioxide, a waste product of metabolism, thereby maintaining the body’s pH balance.
Mental and Emotional Health
- Stress Reduction: Deep and mindful breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting relaxation and reducing stress and anxiety.
- It Enhances Focus and Clarity
- Immune System Support
- Detoxification: Deep breathing aids in the removal of toxins from the body, supporting overall immune function.
- It promotes better posture by engaging the diaphragm and intercostal muscles, which support the spine and thoracic cavity, and activate core muscles.
- Breathing exercises are often used in the management of anxiety disorders, depression, and PTSD, providing a natural way to calm the mind and body.
- Mind-Body Connection: Breathing exercises bridge the gap between the mind and body, promoting overall well-being and balance.
- Spiritual Benefits: In many traditions, breathing techniques are used to enhance spiritual practices, leading to greater mindfulness and a deeper sense of connection.
Accessibility and Simplicity
- Ease of Practice: Breathing exercises can be practiced anywhere, anytime, without the need for special equipment or extensive training.
- Inclusive Practice: Suitable for people of all ages and fitness levels, making it a versatile tool for improving health and wellness.
Lung Volumes
Tidal volume is the amount of air that can be inhaled and exhaled during a normal breath. That is 500ml average in both men and women.
Inspiratory reserve volume – is the amount of air that can be forcibly inhaled beyond a tidal inhalation (about 3,000 ml for men & 2,000 ml for women).
Expiratory reserve volume (ERV) is the amount of air that can be forcibly exhaled beyond a tidal exhalation (about 1200 ml for men & 700 ml for women).
A spirometer is used to check the health of your lungs and respiratory passages.
Pranayama is a Sanskrit term derived from two root words: “prana,” meaning life force or vital energy, and “ayama,” meaning control or regulation. Therefore, pranayama can be defined as the practice of controlling the breath to enhance and balance the flow of life force within the body.
Types of Pranayama
- Nadi Shodhana (Alternate Nostril Breathing): Balances the flow of prana through the nadis (energy channels) and calms the mind.
- Kapalabhati (Skull Shining Breath): Cleanses the respiratory system, energizes the body, and improves mental clarity.
- Bhramari (Bee Breath): Produces a humming sound that calms the mind and reduces stress.
- Ujjayi (Ocean Breath): Produces a sound like ocean waves, helping to focus the mind and increase oxygenation.
- Anulom Vilom (Alternate Nostril Breathing): Similar to Nadi Shodhana, it balances the body’s energies and calms the nervous system.
By incorporating pranayama into your daily routine, you can experience a wide range of physical, mental, and spiritual benefits, leading to a more balanced and healthy life
Breathing exercises help achieve optimum lung capacity and restore disrupted breathing patterns. The handheld breathing exercise devices improve lung health. Due to asthma attacks and prolonged illness, the lungs become frail. Such breathing exercises help expand the alveoli (air sacs in the lungs) and release excess mucus from its surface. It helps prevent any fluid build-up in the lungs and keeps the air passages free. This is not replacing pranayama.
The use of the incentive spirometer in inspiratory muscle training has been shown to maintain or increase inhaled lung volume, prevent lung infection after surgery, and improve sputum expectoration. Inspiratory muscle training is a vital factor in preserving the lungs’ integrity and keeping the lungs clear.
The patient should focus on expanding the lower rib cage instead of expanding only the upper chest.[2] Studies have shown that slow-maintained inspirations used in volumetric incentive spirometry effectively promote lung expansion rather than fast inspirations.[29]
This is an important tool for deep breathing and coughing exercises that clears any secretions and keeps your lungs expanded. This is usually given to prevent pneumonia after surgery, but it is good lung exercise even otherwise. Do this preferably before you eat breakfast, lunch or dinner.
- First time you use it, expand the tubing and connect to an outlet on the base.
- Sit upright, hold the incentive spirometer at your eye level. Exhale once slowly, put the mouthpiece in your mouth and seal your lips tightly around you.
- Take a slow deep breath through your mouth, suck in (Inhale) for as long as you comfortably can, remember you must breathe in through your mouth, not your nose, while using this device. As you inhale deeply, you will see the piston rise on the left side, while piston rise the indicator on the right should move upwards and stay between the arrows. If the indicator does not stay between the two arrows, it means you are breathing either too fast or too slow.
- When you get the piston as high as you can, try to keep it at that level for 3-5 seconds or longer if possible. Remove the mouthpiece and exhale through the mouth. Let the piston fall all the way back to the bottom. Now rest.
- Try to get the piston at the same level each time you do the exercise.
- Practice this exercise at least 10 times per hour while awake.
- After each time you use the incentive spirometer, give 3 deep coughs to clear secretions even if you are not coughing anything up.
- After 10 breaths, take a break, put the marker at the level you reached. This is your goal next time.
Breathing exercies can improve your lung function, respiratory muscle strength, relax your mind and body, and many more health benefits.
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This uses airflow resistance for respiratory muscle training, which strengthens respiratory muscles to improve lung capacity, reduces stress, strengthens your lungs, reduces shortness of breath, boosts stamina.
Step 1: Place the clean mouthpiece in your mouth with the word ‘top’ facing up, bite down the inner side of the mouthpiece to hold it in place
Step 2: sit up straight, don’t slouch.
Step 3: Adjust the resistance level to your desired level of breathing resistance. Make it challenging but not uncomfortable.
Step 4: Start breathing in, inhale deeply through mouthpiece until you can’t anymore, approximately 3 seconds, and exhale through mouthpiece until you are almost out of breath. Focus on filling your lungs completely with air. This action engages inspiratory muscles.
Step 5: Adjust the resistance for less or more according to your capacity
Step 6: Remove the mouthpiece and wash it after use to maintain hygiene
Do this ten times to complete one set. Do 3-4 sets per day, approximately 5 minutes a day for two weeks to notice breathing improvement. Do not use longer than 60 minutes per day.
Use it preferably before meals and discontinue using it and seek immediate medical attention if you feel pain or discomfort.
Disclaimer:
this information is for educational purpose only, don’t constitute a medical advice. Before you try this consult your doctor to see whether this is the right lung exercise for you. This product is not FDA-approved.
Caution:
Do not use if you have a cold, sinus infection or any severe lung conditions like pneumothorax, collapsed lung, severe asthma, high blood pressure, heart problems, eye pressure issues or burst ear drum.
Do not share this with family members.
How long will it take to see improvement:
users reported that they felt better with in the first few days of using these. The more consistent you are, the more often you use, the better results you will have.
Research:
https://rc.rcjournal.com/content/65/3/377.short
This study showed breathing exercises can improve pulmonary function, respiratory muscle strength, exercise capacity, dyspnea, health-related quality of life in patients with COPD.
This study showed by doing intense breathing exercise for 8 weeks it improved lung health in healthy people. They noticed an increase in inspiratory muscle function, induces morphological changes in the diaphragm, and increased lung volumes in people who are healthy. These findings were also associated with an increase in physical work capacity. These findings suggest that increasing inspiratory muscle function by fixed load and full inspiratory volume IMT, as described in this article, may have a significant impact in improving exercise capacity in people who are healthy.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10664-022-10148-z
The data indicates usefulness and effectiveness of an intervention for computer workers in terms of increasing well-being and resilience. Everyone needs a way to deliberately relax, unplug, and recover. A breathing practice is a simple way to do so, and the results call for establishing a larger body of work to make this common practice.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S001236921160189X
This study shows the treadmill helps clear mucus better than cycling.
https://tis.wu.ac.th/index.php/tis/article/view/346
Slow-deep breathing exercises while using a volume-oriented type of incentive spirometry (VIS) device (SDBE/VIS) is one of the techniques in chest physical therapy designed to improve lung volume and oxygenation.
It appears that performing slow deep breathing exercise (SDBE/VIS) paired with the sustained maximal inspiration (SMI) technique has a significant and positive effect on diffusion lung capacity (DLC).
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Stephanie J Enright, Viswanath B Unnithan, Clare Heward, Louise Withnall, David H Davies, Effect of High-Intensity Inspiratory Muscle Training on Lung Volumes, Diaphragm Thickness, and Exercise Capacity in Subjects Who Are Healthy, Physical Therapy, Volume 86, Issue 3, 1 March 2006, Pages 345–354, https://doi.org/10.1093/ptj/86.3.345